Out now via the fine German electropop label SkyQode is “How to Disappear”, a full-length collaboration album between Pavel Zolin of Russia’s darkwave / dream pop band Purple Fog Side and Piero Delux of Elsehow, an art-pop project from Belgium. Started in the lockdown times, when Pavel and Piero first exchanged their ideas and demos, this collaboration has grown beyond a couple of songs into a full blown studio album.

“How to Disappear” offers a mix that blends dream pop and progressive soundscapes with 80s new wave and synthpop influences topped with attractive vocals.

Below is the lyric video for “To The Moon And Back”.

You can download the full album below on Bandcamp or get it on CD as well.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Out now is “I Believe”, a brand new collaborative single from Purple Fog Side (Russia) and Elsehow (Belgium), who formed the project during the pandemic lockdown. Together these two musicians, Pavel Zolin and Piero Delux, have created a music stye that is heavily rooted in the 1980s blending dream pop, darkwave and synthpop influences.

The new single is a cover version of Tears For Fears’ “I Believe”, originally from the multi-platinum album “Songs from the Big Chair”. The duo will also release an album and are right now putting the final touches on their full-length, due in 2022 on the SkyQode label.

You can download the single right below via Bandcamp or get it here on all the other platforms.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Out now via SkyQode is “Embryogenesis”, a new EP release by the electronic rock artist, Enhok.

The digital version of “Embryogenesis” consists of six tracks including the previously released singles. The whole EP is a perfect demonstration of Enhok’s sound fusing elements of rock and dark electronica.

The CD version of “Embryogenesis”, limited to only 150 copies, comes in a slick 6-panel digipak with lyrics. It also features five remixes by Elezoria, Last Activity, Purple Fog Side, Requiem4FM and Synthetische Lebensform.

Enhok was founded by the Venezuelan artist Diego Gutierrez currently based in Barcelona, Spain.

You can download the album below from Bandcamp.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Out now via the fine label SkyQode (and available via Bandcamp too) is “Shading A Life”, another single born from the collaboration between Pavel Zolin of Russia’s darkwave / dream pop band Purple Fog Side and Piero Delux of Elsehow, an art-pop project from Belgium. Together they create a musical blend that mixes dream pop with 80s new wave and synthpop.

Besides the title track “Shading A Life”, the single also features a piano version of the title track and its instrumental version, as well as a remix of the previous single “To The Moon And Back” by Russian electronic project N0_TiTLE.

This collaboration started in 2020 during the lockdown times and both musicians are now actively working on finishing more tracks for their collaborative full-length album, due later this year.

Check the single below.

And here is the video for the title track.

The Bandcamp download is available below.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Out now via the fine label SkyQode is “To The Moon And Back”, a new single that marks the beginning of a collaboration between Russia’s renowned darkwave / dream pop band Purple Fog Side and Elsehow, an art-pop project from Belgium.

Together, Pavel Zolin (Purple Fog Side) and Piero Delux (Elsehow, ex-Dark-o-matic), create a blend of dream pop and progressive soundscapes with 80s new wave and synthpop influences. The idea of this collaboration was born just before the pandemic, and most of the tracks were written during the lockdown in 2020.

“To The Moon And Back” is the first single taken off their upcoming collaborative album. In addition to the title track, it features an instrumental version and a remix by Russian synthpop project Elektronnoe Oblako.

You can check this new single below or buy it here.

And here is the album teaser.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Genre/Influences: Electro-pop.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Dark-O-Matic duo was set up in 2017 by Greg Dovas and later on joined by singer Piero Delux. After a few singles Dark-O-Matic has released its debut album featuring ten songs plus four remixes (featured on the CD edit).

Content: I’m used to hearing electro-pop releases on the Russian label SkyQode. Dark-O-Matic is for sure a new formation dealing with good-old synth-pop music, but it’s only the basis of their work. The production has been something different, which sometimes reminds me of Moloko. The vocals have something charismatic while the music brings melancholic tunes.

Remixes were created by Unity One, Requiem4FM, People Theatre and Purple Fog Side.

+ + + : Globally speaking, this album features a well-crafted song production. The songs are accomplished and mixed with a clean, but great vocals’ production. The three previously released singles have been featured, but my favorite song is “All We Do Is Wait” featuring great sequences. Among the remixes I have to mention the great job done by Unity One and People Theatre both with a remix of “Zugzwang”. 

– – – : If you already know the previously released singles, the bonus part of the CD edit will be a little bit disappointing as the remixes are familiar ones, and the singles’ title songs unfortunately aren’t my favorite ones.

Conclusion: I can’t say this debut album left me unmoved, I am however missing a few elements in the global production to speak about a complete success.

Best songs: “All We Do Is Wait”, “Authentic?”, “Rather Be”, “Zugzwang – Unity One Remix”, “Zugzwang – People Theatre’s Drifting Remix”.

Rate: (6½).

Artist: www.facebook.com/wearedarkomatic

Label: http://skyqode.com / www.facebook.com/skyqode Read the news on ‘New Hope’.

About Dark-O-Matic

Dark-O-Matic was started in 2017 by Greg Dovas and later joined by vocalist Piero Delux. The duo enlisted sound engineer and producer George Nerantzis to record their music, described as a cross between 80s wave music and synthpop with a darker edge. “New Hope” is the project’s debut album on the SkyQode label, preceded by the singles “Zugzwang” and “Authentic?”.

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

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Out now via the fine label SkyQode is the debut album by Dark-o-matic, entitled “New Hope”. It consists of 10 tracks, including “Zugswang” (which is featured on “Face The Beat: Session 5”), “Make Me Blue” and “Authentic?”. A great band you need to discover pretty fast.

The album can be downloaded via various channels right here! Warmly recommended!

Dark-o-matic was started in 2017 by Greg Dovas who was later joined by vocalist Piero Delux. Enlisting the help of sound engineer and producer George Nerantzis, the duo started recording their music, best described as a cross between 80’s wave music and synthpop but with a darker edge to it. The CD version of the album features 4 bonus remixes by Unity One, Requiem4FM, People Theatre and Purple Fog Side.

You can listen to the album below. Read the review of ‘New Hope’.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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The past weekend we launched a mega mix of “Face The Beat: Session 5” done by Seattle (United States) based DJ Shane Aungst. The 1 hour, 33 minutes and 21 seconds long mix features a total of 23 tracks (with the proceedings equally going to charity). If you were surprised by the quality of the mega mix, then it’s no coincidence as Shane Aungst isn’t exactly a newbie to the industrial scene. Also as a DJ he is rather prolific, or what do you think of the 168 DJ sets he posted on Mixcloud!

Time we asked Shane a few questions!

SL: Shane, you’re not exactly a newbie in the industrial music scene…

S: I would say my background in music started around 1984/85ish. I was only fifteen at the time and had found my way into a number of Seattle area post punk clubs during that time. I jumped head first into it all, the clubs, the chemicals, the music, all of it.

In the early 90s I met Michael Wimer at Musicland where we worked together. Mike had been working on music on his own and asked if I could sing (which I never had), we ended up with noxious emotion and I played with noxious from 1993 to 1999. We recorded a few albums, toured a few times and got to play with a lot of amazing bands from the 90s.

After leaving the bands behind, I DJ’d a number of nights around the Seattle area from around 2001 onward. I had a couple of nights at the Seattle club Noc Noc, where I was mainly playing a lot of goth top 40 classics back in those days. I also had this weekly 80s post punk night; I did that for over a decade plus a number of guest spots around the city. However around 2014, I started working at one of the top edm clubs in Seattle for about three years. It was quite the musical education for me. I was only working as bar staff, but I had a front row seat to all the top edm acts and producers and really got to listen and watch all the top names of techno, house, trance, etc.

It was during this time that I had a lot of inspiration and knew I wanted to take some of what these people were doing and translate it in my own way to industrial.

SL: How did you get the idea to make a megamix? It’s the first time someone did that for this compilation series actually.

S: I’ve always enjoyed the Face the Beat series and with the release of the newest Face the Beat session 5, I knew I would have a lot of good material to choose from and I just decided to do it.

This is actually the fourth such mix I’ve done, the first one started with Electrosound, it originally was going to be released as a compilation but the project fell through as an official release and I ended up posting it to my mixcloud account. I also did one for the Russian Dark Community compilation as well as well as one for Ray of Genius of Nefarious. Ray had asked me to do a remix a few weeks before he passed earlier this year, we had had been talking almost daily about the remix and life in general and it hit me hard when he passed and I wanted to do one for him and of course now this one.

SL: How did you get to choose the 23 tracks that are featured in this mix?

S: This was the hardest part as there was over five hours of music to choose from and I ended up with around ninety minutes of music. I just went through all the songs one night, and put aside all the ones that had the right feel for me. I’m a big fan of harsh electronic music and tend to play a lot of aggrotech, but for this mix it was the song “Burn (Feat. C0r3 C1ty)” from Purple Fog Side that really reached out and grabbed me and I built my sampling and the mix around that song.

SL: Where do you get your loops and samples of old school material from that you use in your remix sets?

S: In the last couple years I’ve become somewhat obsessed with sampling. I’ll dig through movies, TV shows, music, interviews, documentaries, beatport (loops), almost anything I can get my hands on as well as making some of my own loops and samples.

SL: You don’t really go for the easy way when you build up sets. What’s the basic idea when you start a set?

S: My whole work process is a bit chaotic and in my head. I spend a couple nights a week just working on sampling, its normally during this time that I find something I like and tend to spin off and play with whatever sample/theme I’m using and build on it from there.

SL: Do you always put that much work in it?

S: Yes and no, it depends on the project, but all the original mixes yes, but you will also find a lot of live sets, collection mixes (collection of edits/remixes I’ve done), but yeah its a lot of work.

SL: You are also working on own material? How is that progressing?

S: A lot slower than I had hoped, I’m always frustrated at my learning curve and I’ve been juggling a lot of projects, its something I still plan on doing but I’m just not there yet.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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The 60th track on our free download compilation “Face The Beat: Session 4” (featuring 92 tracks) is by the female/male fronted Russian dark wave act Purple Fog Side.

Founded on October 12, 1996 Purple Fog Side are truly Russian Goth Scene veterans who reinvented their own vision of darkwave, dark ambient and dark electro in early 1996. Technically heavily inspired by early 90s experimental techno and electro-industrial acts, they gave this sound a new fresh vision of what they call ‘modern goth music’. Since the 00s their style is more refined and incorporates synthpop and EBM.

The band consists of the talented singers Pavel Zolin, Veronica Yakovleva and guitarist Art Nekrasoff. An act which deserves being known outside Russia, so here’s your chance to discover a great act. Check their Facebook page to stay connected.

Listen to “Breathe In” below and download it right here.

Check our “Face The Beat: Session 4” page on Bandcamp to discover the other 91 bands. All donations will go to charity.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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